City of Los Angeles is weighing a new citywide cat policy that would disallow feral cat colonies in "environmentally sensitive areas" or parks. It also permits the feeding of free-roaming cats in colonies elsewhere and would increase the number of cats per household to 5 without requiring a kennel permit. A feral cat relaxes on the cliffs of San Pedro near Royal Palms. (File photo)

• Comments must be received in writing no later than 4 p.m. Nov. 4. They can be mailed to the City of Los Angeles, Department of Public Works, Bureau of Engineering, 1149 S. Broadway, Suite 600, Los Angeles, CA 90015. Comments also can be emailed to Catalina.Hernandez@lacity.org

Los Angeles city officials this week reopened the long-running argument over how best to deal with what seem to be a growing number of feral cats that wildlife advocates say are a plague on the environment.

On Thursday, the city released a report on a proposed policy that would provide resources and support to feral cat colony caretakers — in the form of spay-neuter services, traps, literature and educational workshops — while prohibiting the feeding of unsterilized cats as well as cats that live in parks or are within 1 mile of any area deemed environmentally sensitive.

Among the stated purposes are to “increase spay/neuter of cats,” to “generally reduce” cat euthanasia in shelters and to improve the “management of cats in outdoor locations in a manner that minimizes their impacts on environmentally sensitive habitats.”

The move stems from a 2009 court decision that banned Los Angeles city animal shelters from encouraging feral cat colonies pending an environmental review. The document issued Thursday is an initial study of the policy’s environmental impacts as required under the California Environmental Quality Act.

Since that time, the city has been prohibited from promoting “trap-neuter-return” (TNR) practices in which cats are trapped, sterilized and then returned to the colonies.

The new policy would allow the city again to offer assistance and education on TNR while trying to minimize the effects of outdoor cats on environmentally sensitive habitats.

Travis Longcore, the science director for the lead plaintiff in the original legal action from 2008 — The Urban Wildlands Group — dismissed the proposed policy and its response to environmental concerns as “laughably inadequate.”

“It doesn’t deal at all with the problem and there’s no enforcement mechanism,” Longcore said Thursday. “So you’ll have the status quo. ... We’re very disappointed that the city has proposed a program that does nothing to address the problem of free-roaming cats.”

Longcore said proposed measures to reduce the population of feral cat colonies are essentially unenforceable and will “turn the city into a feral cat dumping ground.”

Christi Metropole, executive director of Stray Cat Alliance, a nonprofit dedicated to the feral cat issue in Los Angeles, hailed the report as a positive way forward.

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“This will help us increase our offers for spay and neuter, it will mean less cats on the street,” she said. The court action, she said, has led to fewer cats being sterilized.

“TNR is the only thing that works, there isn’t an alternative,” she said. “Killing cats didn’t work. ... I’d love it if all cats were kept indoors, but that’s not going to happen.”

A 30-day public review and comment period opened Thursday and runs through Nov. 4. After that, the issue will go before the Board of Animal Services Commissioners for more comment and, eventually, to the Los Angeles City Council.

The policy is a draft and will be subject to lengthy discussion over the next few months.

Among the key points, the new policy would:

• Allow the city to subsidize spay-neuter of cats, including ferals, by making discount coupons available.

• Make city facility rooms available for educational meetings and workshops and allow distribution of literature about TNR practices, bird protection and other issues related to feral cats.

• Permit so-called colony “caretakers” to feed feral cats living in a colony provided the animals are sterilized and the colony is not located in a public park or is a mile away from an environmentally sensitive area.

• Increase the number of cats that can be kept without a cat kennel license from three to five.

It isn’t known how many free-roaming cats exist in the 465-square-mile city of Los Angeles, although the 51-page Citywide Cat Program report states that the number of “cats received at city animal shelters indicate (a) general increase in feral or free-roaming cats.”

How to deal with the city’s stray cat population has long plagued public officials.

While TNR has been touted as a solution, there are holes in the approach, including the problem of unwanted kittens and cats being dumped by people, making it hard to control the numbers of existing colonies.

The process of trapping and sterilizing the cats also is time-consuming and expensive.

Metropole, however, said it’s the best solution available.

If there’s a problem in the report, she said, it is that stipulations about not feeding cats in parks or other areas are not realistic.

“Let’s make the best of it,” she said. “Let’s spay and neuter, let’s promote keeping cats indoors. ... It’s the only thing that works. People in the United States do not believe in going around and killing cats.”

“How to deal with cat-related issues is a tough challenge,” said Aimee Gilbreath, executive director of Found Animals in Los Angeles. “It requires a lot more resources than cities have to give, so I’m glad the city’s taken the next step in the process for having some kind of cat strategy. For the last four years, there’s been no cat strategy.”